VIRTUE ETHICS AND LEADERSHIP

Leaders make choices that affect the lives of other people. When making
these choices, leaders must make normative assessments regarding human ends and
the means to those ends. As such, the decisions that result enter the realm of
the ethical. Thus in order to understand them we need to construct a theory to
help us distinguish what ends and means are ethically good from those that are
bad. To help us see which is the best ethical approach I would like to take a
look at three ethical theories that, when taken together, seem to capture most
people’s intuitions regarding the ways people think when making ethical
decisions. They are rule-centered ethics, utilitarian ethics, and virtue
ethics.

My aim is to show that the first
two approaches are inadequate to describe what an ethically good leader is
like. Nevertheless, even though they are inadequate to describing what a leader
is, they are essential for describing, in conjunction with virtue ethics, how
one is developed.

To begin, I would like to tell a
story. A PLATOON is on a rescue mission. Two members

of
the platoon are trapped on a hill and under fire. Both soldiers are seriously
wounded; within a few hours, they will be dead.Between the platoon and the two soldiers is a minefield, which the
platoon must breach or go around if they are to get to the trapped soldiers in
time.As the platoon leader ponders his
options, he notices a civilian picking his way through the minefield.Obviously, he knows where the mines are.The lieutenant detains the civilian, but the
man refuses to lead the platoon through the minefield. The lieutenant offers
several enticements to get the man to cooperate, but the man continues to
refuse.There is no way he is going back
through that minefield. The lieutenant must make a decision that he had hoped
to avoid.There are rules for situations
like this, but if he follows them, good men will die.[1]

II. Utilitarianism:

Utilitarians define the morally right action as that action that maximizes
some non-moral good such as pleasure or happiness and minimizes some non-moral
evil such as pain or misery. In military situations these are usually equated
with victory. If the lieutenant were a utilitarian, he might reason that he
makes his platoon happy, the two men on the hill very happy, and accomplishes
his mission if he gets the civilian to cooperate, even though that might
involve violating the laws of war. He weighs this against the unhappiness the
civilian will experience and the unhappiness he may experience if he is ever
tried for violating the law and concludes he must do what it takes to get the
civilian to cooperate. In fact, he reasons, failure to do so would invite a
mutiny by the platoon who would no longer have any interest in following
someone who values their lives less than the welfare of someone who is, if not
actually the enemy, certainly not a friend.

Unfortunately, utilitarian reasoning does not stop
there. If he is to be a good and consistent utilitarian, the lieutenant must
also consider the implications of sending the message to his men that whenever
they are in a similarly sticky situation, they are free to disregard the rules.
What if, some time later, they are in a village looking for a sniper and some
of his men conclude that threatening to shoot a civilian until they turn over
the sniper is a good idea? What if they conclude that it would be OK to shoot
one or two to give incentive to other villagers to turn the sniper over to
them? As far as they are concerned the happiness of the platoon (forty or so
people) outweighs the unhappiness of a few civilians.

Even though it is clear to the lieutenant that this
is faulty reasoning, even from a utilitarian point of view, he must still take
this into account when deciding his own course of action. If it is his decision
to torture this civilian that would open up these kinds of possibilities, he
must consider it as weighing against the happiness his platoon would
experience. Now he is not so sure it is a good thing. The problem he has is
that both possible outcomes, as far as the lieutenant can tell, are just as
likely. It seems he is in a dilemma. If we construe ethical dilemmas as a
disagreement about the application of the principle of maximizing happiness or
pleasure, we run into three kinds of problems.

The first concerns what kind of happiness we are
maximizing, the second concerns knowing whether a particular action will indeed
maximize happiness, and the third involves the practical application of
maximization principles that lead to counter-intuitive conclusions about moral
behavior. With regard to the first problem we can distinguish between objective
and subjective employment of the maximization principle. What you feel is in
your interest may indeed not be in your interest. If we take what is to be
maximized in the subjective sense, from the point of view of the people
affected, we run into the difficulty that we might be placed in the situation
of doing things for others that one believes or even knows to be harmful to
them. If, on the other hand, we take the objective sense, then we run into two
kinds of epistemological problems. First, we have to be able to determine,
objectively, what would make people happy. In the situation in which the
lieutenant is placed it is likely that he will be able to do this. The soldiers
will be objectively happier if they save their friends. However, in many other
situations where happiness is culturally determined or where it is impossible
to establish a single objective account of happiness, utility theory will fail.

Second, how can we know we have accounted for all
the possible consequences of a particular action? In such a case, we might do
something we believe will maximize happiness, but in fact does not. This was
certainly the situation the lieutenant was in. He could not be sure which
course of action would actually promote happiness. This leads to our second
objection, how do we know a particular action will indeed maximize happiness?
For utilitarianism to work, it must rely on some form of ‘calculus’ to determine
which actions will maximize the greatest good for the greatest number of
people. Jeremy Bentham, the founder of modern utility theory, defines happiness
as the amount of pleasure someone feels as the consequence of a particular
action.[2] If
happiness is equal to pleasure and pleasure is the means by which we determine
right and wrong, then there must be a way of quantifying this pleasure so that
we can tell which actions will provide a net gain in happiness for the most
people.

The means by which we do this is called the hedonic
calculus. It was Bentham’s hope that employing such a tool would provide
guidance to individuals and groups which would enable them to determine what
actions to pursue and which to avoid without appealing to any abstract notions,
such as motive, religion or ideology for guidance.[3] In
arriving at a pleasure’s value, Bentham considered the following factors:
intensity (how strong the pleasure is), duration (how long it lasts), certainty
(the degree of probability that it will occur), propinquity (how soon it will
be fulfilled), fecundity (its ability to lead to other pleasures), purity (the
likelihood that it will not be mixed with or followed by pain) and extent (the
number of people who will experience it). One utilizes the first four of these
factors when considering the value of a particular pleasure or pain by itself.
If, however, this person wants to estimate the tendency of a particular act to
produce pleasure or pain, he then must consider the next two factors, fecundity
and purity. So for each alternative, one would add up the sum of pleasure that
would likely be experienced, subtract from it the amount of pain likely to
result from such an experience and then, when choosing among alternative
pleasures, choose the one that produces the most happiness (or the least
misery, if that be the case) in relation to the other alternatives.

If a particular action affects more than one
person, then those making the decision must factor the number of people
affected (the extent), to come up with a total value of the pleasure or pain,
and thus the good or evil, that is gained by acting in such a way. If these
values could be quantified and then compared by means of a mathematical
formula, then we would have a "hedonic calculus’ capable of providing an
individual or a group guidance on the value of pursuing a particular act. In
this type of moral arithmetic, all individuals would be treated equally; no
individual’s pleasure or pain would carry more weight than any other’s. Bentham
saw this as tool for leaders, as well as individuals, to utilize when seeking
guidance on which actions to do and which to avoid.

There are however, several objections to this
calculus that make its employment problematic. The first of these objections is
that in order to obtain reliable guidance, fairly accurate values must be
derived for each pleasure and pain and these values must be comparable among
people. We can divide this objection into two parts, the intra-personal and the
inter-personal. The intra-personal objection is that an individual is not
capable of determining, to a sufficient degree, the value of one pleasure or
pain versus another. In fact, it may well be the case that pleasures and pains
are incommensurate and cannot be compared to each other. For example, how do
you compare the pleasure obtained from graduating college with the pleasure one
might get from drinking a good bottle of wine? Let us say I assign drinking the
bottle of wine a pleasure value of one and graduating college a pleasure value
of ten. If it is possible to do this, then (given the hedonic calculus),
drinking ten bottles of wine would be just as good as graduating college. This
seems intuitively odd. But if they are not commensurate, then they are not
comparable. If they are not comparable, then we cannot assign values to each
which then enables us to make a decision between the two.

The interpersonal objection is that it is not
possible, or at least it is very difficult, to compare the values of pleasure
and pain between people. For example, how do I compare the pain of my having
been diagnosed as having a terminal disease and my friend losing her child in
an automobile accident? More to the point, how would a third individual or a
government agency determine between the two? We again run into the same
problems as before, and end up with intuitively odd statements such as ‘two
people’s children dying produce just as much misery as one person getting
AIDS.’ Depending on whether or not you are a parent or an AIDS victim, this
might not be true. But, as before, if we cannot make statements such as this,
then the hedonic calculus cannot apply.

Bentham’s response to this might be that while
there are different sources of pleasure and pain they, "differ not
ultimately in kind...the only difference there is among them lies in the
circumstances that accompany their production."[4]
Bentham says that pleasure and pain issue from four sources; physical,
political, moral, and religious. Pain, for example, is experienced from each of
these sources as a sanction. In the examples he cites concerning the man to
whom a catastrophe falls, it is either the result of a divine judgment, or as a
result of some error in judgment such as not putting your candle out at night
and then having your house burn down. The first would be an example of a
religious sanction and the second the result of a physical sanction. But even
though the sources are different, the pain felt is the same. Since pleasure and
pain are of the same kind, they are just different points on the same
continuum. As such, we should, in Bentham’s mind, be able to pinpoint a value
with some accuracy. Also, since pleasure and pain derive from the same sources
for all people, it seems that Bentham believed that we would be able to compare
them among individuals.

A second objection to utilitarianism is that some
of the conclusions we derive from using it are counter-intuitive. The reason
for this counter-intuitiveness lies primarily in the calculus used. One problem
with it is that it does not distinguish between qualities of pleasure. This can
have two consequences. First, it can lead us to claim that the moral worth
derived from drinking a bottle of wine is the same as producing a great work of
art as long as the pleasure derived from each of these acts is the same. This,
however, does not seem to conform to our intuitions concerning the value of
human acts. Bentham’s refusal to establish a hierarchy of pleasures according
to their quality as well as quantity led many of his critics to describe hedonistic
utilitarianism as a ‘philosophy fit only for pigs.’[5]
While it is clear that Bentham accepts that there is no difference in the
quality of a pleasure, he would add that what others might consider ‘higher’
pleasures are indeed better than ‘lower’ pleasures in that these higher
pleasures are more "complex."

A complex pleasure is one that "determines
alot of pleasure."[6]
Because acts such as going to college, creating a great work of art, etc,
create many more opportunities for pleasure than having a nice meal, they are
of a higher value. The second consequence is that pleasure from any source is
considered equally as good. Thus, getting pleasure from someone else’s pain is
just as valid a route to happiness as any other. For example, if a bunch of sadists
get a great deal of pleasure from tormenting an unwilling subject, their act
could be said to be good, or at least not wrong. Conversely if a bunch of
people get the same amount of pleasure from benefiting someone their act counts
as good in the same way as the sadist’s. There is no way to tell the moral
difference between the two. This seems to conflict with our intuitions
concerning the nature of good. Bentham would probably argue that every pleasure
is indeed a good but he would be concerned that if we introduced moral
judgments outside the framework of pleasure and pain we will be left with only
subjective means for determining right and wrong.

According to Bentham, the various systems of moral
philosophy that do not take pleasure and pain into account when deciding right
and wrong all fall under the principle of "sympathy and antipathy."
These philosophies claim that the moral worth of an action depends on how one
feels about it, that is, "holding up that approbation or disapprobation as
a sufficient reason for itself, and disclaiming the necessity of looking out
for any extrinsic ground."[7]
Since the determining factor in what is right or wrong is decided internally,
debates about right and wrong become complex and unresolvable as each proponent
has his own ideas that cannot be subjected to any objective or external
evaluation. "They consist all of them in so many contrivances for avoiding
the obligation of appealing to any external standard, and for prevailing upon
the reader to accept the author’s sentiment or opinion as a reason for itself."[8]
This leads us to another, and I think the most potent, objection to the hedonic
calculus in specific and utilitarianism in general. As I stated before, there
is nothing intrinsic to the theory that prohibits inflicting pain on others as
long as the happiness generated by the act exceeds the misery created by the
act. One needs only to determine the value for each person of the pleasure or
pain caused by an act and sum the values for pleasure and sum the values for
pain. If the value for pleasure is greater than the value for pain, the act is
a good one. As Bentham states,

Sum up all the values of all the
pleasures on one side, and those of all the pains on the other... Take the
balance; which, if on the side of pleasure, will give the general good tendency
of the act , with respect to the total number or community of individuals
concerned; if on the side of pain, the general evil tendency, with respect to
the same community.[9]

Nowhere, though, is there any requirement for
distributive justice. If more people are made happy by enslaving a minority of
people, then oppressing a minority can be justified. In fact, this argument has
been used since the time of the ancient Greeks in justifying slavery. As a
result, setting limits on any actions such as murder, theft, rape, etc, becomes
impossible. In her short story They
Walked Away from Omelas, Ursula K. LeGuin tells of a utopic society whose
happiness is based on the misery of a single individual. This individual from birth
is locked away in a basement, and except for occasionally being fed, is
completely neglected. If utilitarian theory is correct, then this is a morally obligatory
act. By the same logic, if the pleasure a racial majority in a particular
community experienced by taking advantage of a racial minority exceeded the
pain felt by that minority, the exploitation of the minority would be a morally
good thing to do. If a larger nation wanted to colonize and exploit a smaller
nation, as long as the net pleasure exceeded the net pain, this, too, would be
a good thing to do.

Similarly, if a large community derived pleasure
from benefiting a smaller one, this would be just as good as if they oppressed
them, as long as the net pleasure and pains were the same. There is simply no
way to tell the difference between these acts, because there is no limit set on
the amount of pain individuals and groups can inflict on other individuals and
groups. One might object by saying that if the effects of these actions were
properly understood, it would always be the case that they would cause more
pain than pleasure. One could argue that exploiting a smaller nation or group
of people is always bad because in addition to the pain the oppressed might
feel, the ill will created between the two groups and other smaller groups, who
might not be oppressed now, will eventually lead to conflict, more difficult
access to other resources, or some other such negative consequence for the
larger nation. Therefore acts that seem intuitively bad, such as the examples
given above, are indeed bad according to the hedonic calculus. We just have to
understand all the consequences of such an act to see this. We only have to
look at what happened to the European colonial powers after World War II to at
least see that such actions do indeed come at a cost. But not only is this
objection unsatisfying as a defense of the hedonic calculus, it is also
problematic as we are confronted with the fact that determining the long term
effects of an act is quite difficult, if not impossible.

But even if we grant that this, in theory, could be
done, we are still left with the issue that we cannot tell, using the calculus,
the moral difference between an act that benefits everyone in a smaller
community versus an act that gives happiness to some and misery to others in a
larger community. In other words, the theory leaves unresolved issues of
distributive justice. Without limits to the amount of pain you can inflict on
someone, no requirements of distributive justice can be instituted. We have to
wonder if this indeed is a theory we should use to guide our actions. Do we
want to live in a society where distributive justice, if it occurs, is
incidental? More to the point, do we want an ethic of leadership that does not
require our leaders to work to ensure that justice is done, but instead
requires them to work to ensure the maximization of aggregate happiness?

Some might object that Bentham and the hedonic
calculus are not the best representatives of utilitarianism. Many believe that
rule utilitarianism gets around many of the objections listed above. Rule
utilitarianism is where we choose the set of rules which maximizes happiness
and then follow those rules regardless of their outcomes. This would certainly
help the lieutenant. The military (as well as society at large) has already
recognized that society is, in general, better served by following the war
convention when it conflicts with other rule systems. He simply needs to
recognize this and behave accordingly. However, since the choice of which rule
system maximizes happiness is determined by some form of happiness maximizing
calculus it is still plagued by the same criticisms. Even if this were not the
case, rule systems themselves are plagued by another set of problems which we
will turn to later. This is not to say that utilitarianism does not offer
certain advantages. It does provide a method of establishing moral guidance
that does not rely on abstract, metaphysical or religious concepts. In fact, it
may have been a reaction to the muddle this kind of reasoning results in that
inspired Bentham in the first place.

When we base our idea of right and wrong on
abstract notions such as Hume’s moral sentiments or Kant’s metaphysics, we end
up relying on subjective means to decide what is right and wrong. Furthermore,
we open the door for other abstract theories or religions to lay equal claim to
be the source for moral guidance. By appealing to subjective claims about how
one feels toward an action, or how one reasons one should feel toward an action
as a guiding principle, we are left with theories that are difficult to
understand and that are practically, if not conceptually, impossible for a
large community to generally accept. The apparent benefit gained by adopting the
hedonic calculus is that we can get around this inherent subjectivity and
construct a system everyone can understand. However, the price for accepting
this advantage is a certain amount of uncertainty that the goals of securing
the most happiness can be achieved. In addition we also must sacrifice a sense
of distributive justice. The question then remains, "Is this the price we
want to pay?"

III. Rule-based Systems:

If the lieutenant in our example were following a
rule or duty-based ethical theory further difficulties await him. Which rule
does he follow? One set of rules makes it clear that he may do nothing to hurt
the man in his custody, whether he is a civilian or a guerrilla. By being in
his custody this man is a non-combatant and is protected by the war convention.
But another set of rules, the ones he learned in his officer basic course, tell
him he must always take care of his men and that he must always accomplish the
mission. Which rules take precedence here? We might say that the war convention,
at least as it has taken the form of international treaty, takes precedence
over any rules or duties imposed by the military, specified or implied. In
fact, our story might just end here because the military has done something
much like this. The obligation to uphold the tenets of the war convention does
take precedence over any order or rule imposed solely by the military.
According to the war convention, soldiers take risks that non-combatants do
not, so when there is a choice like the one our lieutenant is facing, he must
decide in favor of the non-combatant, even if that means his soldiers will
likely die.

But this really a legal answer to a moral problem
and begs the question: in the face of competing obligations, which do I choose?
There are problems with forming and implementing rule based ethical systems
that leave our lieutenant in much the same quandary he would be in if he were
an utilitarian. In a rule or duty-based theory doing as required is good in
itself. We cannot know the moral status of any state of affairs without some
account of how it came to be. Was it achieved by intentionally complying with
the rules or by violating them? For example, while the pain a thief causes is
bad, the pain the society imposes on him as part of a just punishment is good.[10]
In the zero-sum game of combat, we can consider the enemy in the same way. The
pain the enemy causes is bad, the pain we cause the enemy is good. In this
theory the act itself is right or wrong regardless of the consequences and it
is often referred to as the ethics of "duty."

I think many theories of leadership fall under this
category. For the most part this makes a great deal of sense. In combat there
is little time for reflection and rules provide something solid and easily
accessible in the confusion and chaos of battle. Also, where there is a great
deal of incentive to do the wrong thing, a well developed sense of duty can
provide the motivation to do the right thing. Rules give leaders something to
fall back on when the idea of "right" might not seem clear. They
provide boundaries and a framework within which to perform the functions of
leadership. However, sometimes these boundaries overlap and rules conflict,
resulting in ethical dilemmas that cannot be resolved without appealing to something
outside the rule system. Furthermore, when building an ethical framework, rule
systems tend to be either too specific or too general to be useful. In an
effort to provide clear guidance, rules get constructed to account for every
possible circumstance. The result is more opportunities for conflicts arise and
the rule system itself becomes so complex, no one could possibly know them all.
The response then is to make the rules vague, to cover a variety of different
situations. The problem here is that they often become too vague to provide any
real guidance in real-life situations. Finally, rules seem to do a better job
in preventing us from doing wrong than they do in motivating us to do right.

A good example that will help us further illustrate
some of the problems with rule based theories is the City of Chicago’s
code of conduct. This thirty-page legal document was an attempt by the city’s
Department of Ethics to prescribe for its forty-two department heads an
exhaustive list of requirements for acting ethically. It was, in effect, an
effort by the city to establish a way for leaders, in whom the public reposed
some level of trust, to do good things and avoid bad things. This approach,
however, had a few shortcomings. First, it was too specific and rigid to help
them resolve many of the dilemmas they routinely faced. In addition to the
thirty pages of legalese, the document was "followed by ten more pages of
amendments, some only a few weeks old (with more expected). Many terms had
technical definitions. Many provisions were also poorly drafted, a rat’s nest
of subordinate clauses. Reading the code left a blur rather than a clear
impression."[11]

This can lead to many problems for the leader who
tries to enforce such a code. In the example of the city of Chicago,
as Davies notes, we can imagine a situation where an administrator risks
alienating those he does business with by refusing to accept small tokens of
appreciation. I personally had this trouble while working in Saudi
Arabia. As a purchasing officer, regulations
prohibited me from accepting any gift, even food or drink, from anyone with
whom I conducted business. In the Muslim culture, where hospitality is an
imperative, this did not go over too well and I did indeed, at first, alienate
many people. So, I faced the situation of either alienating these people or not
accomplishing my mission of purchasing the best products at the lowest price,
or accepting the gifts and violating the rule. This provides us with a good
example of how rule-based theories can leave us short. By strictly adhering to
the rules and principles, in these cases, one is not able to effectively
accomplish the mission, whether it is building an overpass, or purchasing
needed supplies.

One response to this kind of problem would be to
make the rules more general in order to apply to a variety of situations. For
example, in the Chicago situation,
we might abandon the thirty-page document for a set of principles such as
‘serve the people,’ ‘remain impartial,’ and ‘make sound and timely decisions.’
These sound wonderful, but what about when serving one group happens at the
expense of another? Or in trying to make sound and timely decisions, one makes
unsound and untimely ones instead? If one takes this approach, the rules become
too vague and abstract to provide any real guidance to provide helpful guidance
in the complicated situations met in everyday dilemmas.

Finally, rule based systems, while they may be good
at motivating us not to do wrong, usually are not very good at motivating us to
do right. Rules and duties often come with sanctions. If one fails to follow
the rule or do one’s duty, one experiences the sanction, whether that be a jail
term, letter of reprimand, community service, etc. This, however, does not
motivate us to do good. The city of Chicago’s
code, for instance, had many provisions for fair and impartial administration
of city funds and resources, but no provisions for doing real good in the
community. So while an official might learn how to be fair by following such a
code, he or she probably would not learn how to articulate the kind of vision
that motivates people to work together to create a nice place to live. For
instance, if a shady developer wanted a project approved that was not in the
interest of the community, but only in their interest, they might try to bribe
an official to approve it. A strict follower of the code would of course not
accept this bribe, and this bad project would not happen. This, is good as far
as it goes, but it does not go far enough. It avoids an obvious harm, but the
code does not tell the civic leader how to define, direct and inspire people.
To realize this larger end, such a code would have to prescribe the proactive
behavior that would lead to good things happening. One might say we could write
‘proactive’ provisions in the code, and in fact many rule-based approaches do.
But again, the strength of the code will still be limited by how well these
provisions were written. For instance, one prominent military leadership
educator for the military claimed that one can demonstrate integrity by:

"Telling the truth, to both your
superiors and your soldiers. Using your power to work for mission
accomplishment or for your soldiers-not for your own personal and private gain.
Encouraging honest and open communication in your unit."[12]

These provisions are both reactive and proactive.
But are they complete? Is this everything one needs to know to have integrity?
These provisions discuss what it means to have integrity in relation to
accomplishing specific missions. But what about the notion that to have
integrity one must do "the right thing," even when no one is looking
and the consequences are minimal? This is certainly not ruled out, but neither
is it included. Thus, the strength of this approach is limited by the rules
designed to instantiate this particular trait.

One response to this objection might be to say that
‘proactive leadership’ is not required at all levels. We elect leaders to do
these ‘proactive good acts.’ If they fail either to initiate any themselves, or
see that public officials in their charge do so, we just do not reappoint or
reelect them. This is a simple matter of competence, not of ethics. Clearly, in
some sense this is true, but the point is that an ethical code or rule book is
not going to help the leader in question always figure out what the right thing
to do is. And yet, figuring out what is the right thing to do is at the very
heart of good leadership. A good leader leads people to do good things. Thus
the approach to leadership we want is one such that, if leaders follow it, they
will not only gain an understanding of how to lead people to do good things,
but also for what those good things look like.

Consider the following example: On my way to town I
turn on the car radio. On a talk-show a woman is phoning in. She is poor, sick,
and without friends or relatives. She cannot pay for her medicine, and at times
goes ten to fourteen days without talking to anyone. This radio-show is one of
her few links with the outside world. Having parked my car in the parking lot
of a large shopping center, I pass by a large department store. They have a fur
sale. I see people rushing in and out. They spend thousands of dollars on
expensive furs-to be worn to parties or the theater. They are preoccupied with
their pleasure in acquiring luxury items and thus possession of goods that will
gain them prestige in the community.[13]
This situation poses some serious problems for rule-based theories. If the
woman buying the fur knows of shut-ins (which she, of course, does) is she
acting unethically?

Ethics concerns itself with how we affect other
human beings. In a rule-based approach, she would only be acting unethically if
she broke some sort of rule. Ethical rules, though, can only regulate actions.
However, we affect others not only through what we do but also by what we feel
and what attitudes we adopt toward them. But feelings and attitudes (which are,
in a large part, functions of our personality) cannot be exclusively regulated
by rules. For example, we might make the rule "Do not neglect lonely
people!" or "Do not buy luxury items as long as you could use your
time and energy to help those who are shut-ins!" But this gives us limited
guidance as to what constitutes neglecting the lonely. Furthermore, these are
not really rules but exhortations? We all agree in general that one ought not
to neglect the lonely; but there are serious disagreements about what
constitutes, in any given context, neglect of the lonely. Again, nobody would
accept the second candidate (above) as a rule of ethics without qualifications.[14]

Part of the problem lies in the fact that a rule is
something you can follow, choose, adopt, reject, or formulate. Feelings,
attitudes, and personality traits, however, are not. We can make rules that
govern specific actions or situations, but whether or not we can decide what to
feel or what personality traits to have is less clear. We can, of course,
decide to adopt a rule according to which we should do everything in our power
so that we will become such and such a person, e.g. a courageous individual. Or
we can try to do everything in our power so that we will develop into kind
persons. But one cannot decide to be kind, or to become kind; and one cannot
decide to be courageous or to become courageous. What we feel and what we are
is not a matter of decisions, or mere actions; and if rules govern solely
actions, then there can be no rule governing feelings or character traits.[15]
It makes no sense to say that someone is in a state in accordance with a rule,
or that someone is in a state by following a rule, though it does make sense to
say that someone got himself to be in a state by following a rule. For example,
can you make a rule to be healthy? If you do, what can you say to someone who
gets sick? If you say: "Do not be unhealthy!" you are not really
forming a rule, but rather making an exhortation.

So even if we create rules and duties requiring
people to act with integrity, or to be generous, or to lead, we do not really
give the potential leader a coherent system on which he or she can base
decisions. This is because rules cannot cover states and feelings. Nonetheless
these states and feelings do affect our attitudes toward other human beings.
Since our attitudes affect how we treat other human beings, then they also
affect these others’ welfare. Since our attitudes affect the welfare of others,
they are within the sphere of the ethical. But since they cannot be governed by
rules, ethical theories that rely on rules are going to be inadequate to
describing and prescribing ethical behavior. The strength then of a rule-based
approach rests on how it can perform a number of balancing acts, for example,
the balancing act between being too rigid and too general and between avoiding
wrong and doing right. If it tries to do both, it becomes unwieldy, and ends up
being a source of dilemmas rather than a method for resolving dilemmas. But
even if it does manage to achieve some sort of balance, it still cannot give us
a complete account of everything that lies within the sphere of the ethical.

IV. Virtue Ethics

Neither utilitarian nor rule-based theories provide
the lieutenant with adequate guidance on what he should do. Even if they did
there is nothing inherent in them, as moral approaches, that will motivate him
to choose the course of action they prescribe, especially when it conflicts
with his desires. What the lieutenant will do will ultimately depend on the
kind of person the lieutenant is. For this reason it becomes important to develop
leaders of character who understand what it means to be a good leader, not just what it means to follow rules, perform
duties or even just reason well. If we are going to provide leaders with the
resources necessary to make ethically good decisions, especially in tough
situations, as well as develop good leaders among subordinates, it becomes
important to construct a theory of ethics that will tell us what good character
is and how it can be developed. Since virtue ethics primarily deals with issues
of character, it is a good place to start.

The major difficulties with the rule-based and
utilitarian approaches is that they lead to dilemmas that we can not resolve
within the context of the theory and they can sometimes yield results that do
not conform with our intuitions of right and wrong. Virtue ethics gets around
this by focusing not on the act but on the agent. A virtuous person is more
concerned with being the kind of person that does the right thing at the right
time and in the right way and not as much on the act itself. Virtue ethics
avoids most dilemmas because the focus is no longer on deciding between two
unfortunate outcomes, but on being a certain kind of person. A virtuous leader
does not assign values to outcomes or preferences to duties. The virtuous agent
has habituated dispositions that make her the kind of person who does the right
thing. One can think of virtue ethics utilizing a ‘medicinal analogy.’ Take for
example the exhortation "Be healthy!" As I stated earlier, we can encourage
people to become healthy, but we cannot legislate that they become healthy. You
can legislate an action, but not a state. Similarly, we can exhort people to
"Be kind!" but we cannot legislate that they be kind because being
kind is a state, and you cannot legislate states.

In the section describing the shortcomings of
rule-based systems I described the areas that it does not cover as ‘feelings’
and ‘sensitivities.’ Let’s now take a closer look at this area. While I
discussed how approaches to leadership that rely exclusively on rules and
duties are incomplete, it is nevertheless true that no notion of leadership can
be complete unless it accounts for rules and duties. Duties for the leader
establish a framework within which to employ virtue. A leader must know what
duties he or she has toward his or her organization, as well as which duties
the organization has toward the greater organization or society to which it
belongs, before he or she can begin to instantiate the virtues required to
successfully lead it. For example, judges must know the law before they can
apply virtue in enforcing it. This is because a certain kind of sensitivity is
needed in applying rules of conduct or laws. A good judge, whether he ranks
individuals on a scale, or delivers judgments in accordance with the law, must
be sensitive. He must be aware of special circumstances that might surround a
case, special interpretations placed on certain kinds of conduct by people from
certain socio-economic groups, etc. Though this kind of sensitivity is not a
matter of following rules, it is not a matter of feelings either.[16]

Virtue provides a way to avoid the shortcomings of
rule-based ethics by encouraging sensitivity to local conditions in the
enforcing of any rule. Virtues involve a delicate balancing between general
rules and an awareness of particulars. In this process, as Aristotle stresses,
the perception of the particular takes priority. It takes priority in the sense
that a good rule is a good summary of wise particular choices, and not a court
of last resort. Employing our health analogy again, the rules of ethics, like
rules of medicine, should be held open to modification in the light of new
circumstances. The good leader must therefore cultivate the ability to perceive
and correctly and accurately describe his situation and include in this
perceptual grasp even those features of the situation that are not covered
under the existing rule. James Wallace describes virtue as conscientiousness
toward obligations. According to Wallace, "[t]raits of character that
focus in a certain way upon the observance of forms of behavior I call
conscientiousness...[a]ctions fully characteristic of virtues that are forms of
conscientiousness are the sort that moral philosophers regard as manifesting a
sense of duty or obligation."[17] A
person who is conscientious about behaving in a certain way can be said to be
intrinsically motivated to behave in that way.

Thus someone who follows a rule because they
believe it is the right thing to do is motivated intrinsically. This is
different from someone who is motivated to follow a certain rule because of
some externally imposed sanction for failing to follow the rule. Such a person
would be said to be extrinsically motivated. One problem with extrinsically
motivated people is that it is unlikely they will adhere to a certain rule or
meet a certain obligation if they feel the possibility of sanction is remote.
Thus, in regard to a virtue, an agent must be conscientious toward
instantiating that virtue. For example, you have to want to become trustworthy
because you want to pursue this ideal in order to become truly trustworthy. You
want to pursue this ideal because, as a leader, you want to create an
environment where your subordinates trust you unquestioningly. However, the
only way to become this is to pursue it uncompromisingly, regardless of the
consequences to yourself. To do otherwise would make you less than trustworthy.
Take for example the officer that lies on a readiness report. It could be a
small lie, one that has little consequence and almost certainly does not hurt
anyone. However, if such a person would lie when consequences are minimal, how
can he be trusted when consequences are severe?

Only by consistently instantiating a virtue can one
habituate oneself to it. This is not to say, however, that virtue ethics takes
no account of consequences. But the way it does demonstrates its strength. If
what you value is a strong community or organization, only an uncompromising
commitment to virtue will yield that community. You behave courageously in all
situations, because to not do so would mean, in times of crisis, you would
consistently fail to do so. Failure to do so in a time of crisis would result
in catastrophic failure of the organization. In this way it may seem that
virtue ethics is in fact a clever version of consequentialism, but this is not
the case. Consequentialist and utilitarian ethics are predicated on some sort
of calculus in which it is necessary to account for the happiness and misery
each act creates.

Virtue ethics appeals to no such calculus. It is
more the case that it is predicated on the assumption that to live well you
must live in a community where everyone values and instantiates certain
virtues. In terms of leadership, we might say that in order to lead well, you
must instantiate certain virtues that facilitate good leadership. An ethically
good leader, when confronted with a choice, acts to instantiate the appropriate
virtue. He does not calculate the affect instantiating this virtue will have.
Being virtuous, in and of itself, is good. Being uncompromisingly committed to
being trustworthy, courageous, etc is then the only way to be sure that, as a
leader, you are doing the right thing. Furthermore, if you behave only out of a
sense of role specific obligations, then you are a moral robot, responding to
situations only when duty calls.

But since ethics involves considering how what we
do and feel affects others, to be truly virtuous, we must put ourselves in
others’ place and be concerned about how what we do affects them. Thus, the
instantiation of any particular virtue also requires benevolence. Benevolence,
according to Wallace, is "a genus or family of virtues of which kindness,
generosity, humanness, and compassion are (overlapping) species or forms."[18]
It involves a direct concern for the happiness and well-being of others which
manifests itself in both feelings and action. This is critical for a leader.
Subordinates must believe that the leader has their interests at heart, at
least to the extent that their interest and the organization’s interests
coincide. Trustworthiness habituated only out of a duty toward it can get un-virtuously
applied when subordinates’ interests are not taken into account.

For example, in battle soldiers may trust that an
officer will be true to his word and in fact can be trusted to do the right
thing, especially in tight situations. However, soldiers also need to trust
that the leader cares about them and getting them out alive. If this trust does
not exist, a soldier’s concern for self preservation may replace his commitment
to accomplishing the mission. He needs to feel that someone is genuinely
looking out for him. So without this notion of benevolence, the virtue of
trustworthiness seems incomplete. So when acting in strict accordance with a
given duty does not provide clear guidance as to what we should do, benevolence
can carry us the rest of the way.

Unlike a rule based approach to leadership and
leadership development which emphasizes "doing," a virtue ethics
approach focuses on developing character traits which lead to "being"
a good leader. To become a good leader, you must acquire and exercise those
virtues or character traits that make you so. Here I would like to introduce
the idea of special virtues to illustrate how a virtue ethics approach to
leadership might work. If we decide that something is itself a good end, we can
adopt special virtues that will help us realize that end. Special virtues then
become the means by which we instantiate this good end. Becoming a good leader
does not consist merely in learning and keeping principles, but in developing
one’s character by practicing certain sorts of behavior until they become
habitual, that is, part of one’s character. This is echoed in ADM James Stockdale
in Thoughts of a Philosophical Fighter Pilot,

Crystall continued. ‘what’s important
is not a person’s current views on transient issues, but his character.
Thinking back, I have seldom been surprised at a position held or action taken
by a political figure. Once his true character has been grasped, his policies
and actions are almost always predictable fallouts.’ To test this idea, I went
back and studied the Lincoln-Douglas debates in detail. And let me tell you, Douglas was all issues. He pandered to the mob on every little issue of
1858-and had our current style of television coverage prevailed in those
pre-Civil War years, we would have made him the darling of America...Abraham
Lincoln on the other hand was weak on some issues and indifferent about quite a
few others. But you can’t read the speeches he wrote and not get the message
that he was all character.[19]

To see why the development of a virtuous character
is important to a leader, I will return to Davies’ example of the City of Chicago’s
guidelines for public officials. According to Davies, what these administrators
wanted was a checklist so that they would be alert to problems and have some
way of thinking about them in order to be better able to resolve them.
"They wanted to understand a code they knew they could neither learn by
heart nor leave to the lawyers." Now if these officials followed a
virtuous approach, they would concentrate on what it means to be a good leader,
not on which rules apply to a given situation. So, in situations where the
rules do not provide effective guidance, the leader can resort to the
instantiation of a special virtue or virtues, to resolve the dilemma. Taking
the purchasing officer example, instead of alienating many people just to
uphold a rule, I might try to instantiate public virtue. We’ll define public
virtue as the willingness of those who govern to place the value of their
organization above personal interest.[20]
Thus instead of going home empty handed, I might accept the gift, conduct the
business, and report the gift to higher officials. In this way I act in the
benefit of those of whom I am in charge, but also, by reporting and turning in
the gift, still maintain the impartiality and integrity required by someone who
is responsible for public resources. My personal interests, either in getting
the job done or in receiving the gift never comes into conflict with any public
responsibilities.

In this approach, the ‘moral correctness’ of a
leader’s decisions are dependent on the virtues chosen to be instantiated.
Since good leadership is the end, and since we defined a good leader as someone
who leads others to do good things, the ‘moral correctness’ of the virtue
ethics approach then depends on how well the habituation of the special virtues
result in the acquisition of good leadership. If we accept this approach, we
are then free to add, subtract and modify special virtues as they contribute to
the success of the end which we are seeking to realize. As we experience and
react to new situations, levels of organization, etc., we learn which special
virtues work, which do not work, and more specifically, how they work. So as we
move up through an organization, or take on new tasks, we increase our
knowledge of how to exercise these virtues, and by so doing, become a more
virtuous leader.

Taking parents (who I take to be leaders of a
special kind) as an example, early in child’s life, special virtues such as
caring may be more important than, say, wisdom. This priority will generate a
specific set of techniques that enable the parent to lead the child into
his/her next stage of development. For instance, timely feedings and diaper
changes are more important than choosing the proper rules to enforce or books
to read. But by the time the child gets to be a teenager, the parents will have
had to reprioritize the special virtues and generate a set of new techniques to
lead their children to the final goal of adulthood. Now wisdom may take
priority over caring. Knowing which rules to enforce may now take precedence
over feeding (who knows what they eat anyway?).

This is not to say caring will no longer be
important, but it will take on a new characteristic and possibly a new priority
in relation to the other special virtues. The point is, as the child develops,
as you take on larger organizations, or as you take on different kinds of
tasks, your techniques may change, but the virtues you are trying to
instantiate do not. In fact, they provide us with a comprehensive framework for
generating and developing these techniques. So as we gain in experience, our
approach gains in strength. We can see how a virtue ethics approach to
leadership can resolve certain dilemmas that rule-based theories cannot.
Instead of doing good things, the virtuous person focuses on being good. How you
become good is by acquiring certain virtues or character traits that lead to
doing virtuous things. This is, however, where rule based approaches can play a
key role. Virtues are not developed overnight. You cannot wake up one day and
decide to be courageous, for example, and actually expect to immediately be so.
Being virtuous would mean knowing the right time, place, circumstance and
manner to be courageous. You acquire these traits by habituation. According to
Aristotle, whose writings have influenced much of modern virtue theory, you
become virtuous only by performing virtuous actions until doing so becomes
habitual. In other words, experience is necessary. He makes his point by
contrasting virtues and natural capacities:

Of all the things that come to us by
nature we first acquire the potentiality and later exhibit the activity (this
is plain in the case of senses; for it was not by often seeing or often hearing
that we got these senses, but on the contrary we had them before we used them,
and did not come to have them by using them); but the virtues we get by first
exercising them, as also happens in the case of the arts as well. For the
things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them, e.g. men
become builders by building and lyre players by playing the lyre; so too we
become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by
doing brave acts (Book II, 1103a27-1103b1).

But how does one who has no experience in such
matters develop that experience? This is where rules play a vital role.
Consider Colonel Malone’s formulation for the character trait integrity. These
provisions certainly come across as rules. When in a situation where one has
the option of lying or telling the truth, the rule says, tell the truth. When
working on an assignment, the rule says work as hard as you can. When your
interests and the interests of the organization or those that follow you come
into conflict, the rule says decide in favor of the organization and your
followers. But these provisions, like most rules, are reactive, not proactive.
Integrity only comes into play when you are working on an assignment or when
interests come into conflict. Therefore, I think this needs to be distinguished
from the virtue integrity which describes a way to be, even when others are not
looking. I will discuss this in more detail later, but the point I want to make
is that these rules are a necessary starting place for habituation.

When we try to describe a virtue, as in the example
above, we tend to list the things we must do in order to instantiate this
virtue. Listing these things is just like listing rules and principles to
follow. This is, in fact, one of the major problems with a virtue approach.
When we try to put it into practice, we end up with what appears to be
essentially a rule-based system. Nevertheless, forming these rules in the
context of a virtue is a necessary first step in the habituation of virtue.
Take, for example, the virtue of caring. In the training of military leaders,
cadets and lieutenants are often told that one of the rules of caring is that
the officer’s place is at the front of the mess line, ensuring that everyone
gets fed.

In fact, Brigadier General (retired) Ray Miller
tells of a time when he found a lieutenant under his command at the end of the
line, a situation he quickly corrected. The lieutenant did not make that
mistake again. Now, initially, as the lieutenant stands at the head of a line,
he is simply following a rule. But he knows this rule is supposed to make him a
more caring person. So, as he stands there, he begins to notice things. For
example, the cooks may be giving out unusually small portions, the food is not
cooked as well as it should or could be, or there is a lack of variety from day
to day. Now there is nothing in the rule that requires him to do anything about
these things. His only requirement is to make sure everyone gets fed before he
does. Nonetheless, since he knows that these rules are supposed to make him a
more caring person toward his soldiers, he is motivated to take action to
correct these things.[21]

This may seem like a simple and inconsequential
example, but I think this same dynamic works in a great many situations. At
first, the junior officer is following rules, but later, after doing it long
enough with a properly critical and creative attitude, he makes a transition to
where he is actually disposed to be caring. Once this happens, this person is
no longer simply following rules. If rules are going to have a role in
habituating virtue, it is critical that the person making the rules must
possess the virtue. In this way the rules are not arbitrary but instead become
a sort of "path" the junior leader follows to become a good leader.
This then leads us to the notion of mentorship. Aristotle likened the acquiring
of virtues to playing an instrument. It requires both practice and a teacher.
One does not pick up a guitar and by fooling around with it, figure out how to
play it. One might, after a fashion, be able to make pleasant sounds with it.
But without someone to provide an example, getting to that point will be long
and arduous, fraught with mistakes, and at the very least, certainly not
efficient.

To acquire the virtues necessary to be a good
leader, we must introduce the notion of the ‘role model.’ Junior, or would-be
leaders need to see how the required special virtues are instantiated by those
who are effective at leadership. Only then will they learn how to effectively
habituate these virtues into their own lives. Role models, however, are not
just found among the people we know. To this end, I would like to distinguish
between two kinds of role model, namely the living and the dead. I will discuss
the latter first. I think it is imperative that any leader of any type be well
versed in history. By studying the great leaders of the past, leaders of the
present can learn what worked and what did not work in a variety of situations.
By analyzing their actions from a virtue ethics approach, one can learn what
behaviors, thought patterns, expectations, etc. lead to the habituation of
certain virtues and which ones did not. Additionally, even if the past leaders
themselves did not follow such an approach, the study of their actions will
allow us to construct ways to develop virtues we already have as leader’s
special virtues, or to add ones we don’t have.

Junior leaders must also see senior leaders
exercise these virtues in their own lives. In the same way children learn by
watching what their parents do, junior leaders learn by watching what senior
leaders do. Just as the teenager does not take seriously the admonition not to
drink from the alcoholic parent, admonitions to maintain specific virtues will
go unheeded if junior leaders see senior leaders being promoted or excelling
while violating the virtues they extol. Junior leaders who are only exposed to
weak and ineffective leadership styles are extremely unlikely to ever overcome
this and develop good ones on their own. "Do as I say and not as I
do" simply does not cut it in raising children or developing leaders. As
Aristotle says,

We must attend, then, to the
undemonstrated remarks and beliefs of experienced and older people or of
intelligent people, no less than to demonstrations. For these people see
correctly because experience has given them their eye (NicEth 1143b11-14).

Role modeling also allows the junior leader, or
child for that matter, to learn first hand the ‘why’ behind these virtues. This
is important, because when these virtues and actions come into question, only
by understanding why they are important will the leader understand how to
effectively habituate them. By consistently seeing how certain actions are tied
to the instantiation of certain virtues, one learns then not only why this
virtue might be important, but also why these actions are important. The virtue
becomes important because it leads us to do good things and the actions become
important because they lead us to realize the virtue in our lives. For example,
in trying to develop the habit of good leadership, I will try to organize
others to do good things. Why is it good to organize others to do good things?
Because I have specified leadership as an intrinsic virtue. This works for the
special virtues too. For example, to develop the habit of courage, I will act
courageously whenever the situation demands. Why do I do this? Because courage
is a good thing to acquire and exercise. Why is courage good to acquire?
Because it leads one to becoming a good leader.

V. Conclusion:

I have made the claim that, as an ethical theory,
virtue ethics better accounts for good leadership than either utilitarianism or
rule-based systems. It does so because when a leader is faced with the kind of
situation I described in the beginning of the paper it is the virtues that the
leader has habituated that are going to guide his or her actions. When the
calculations of utilitarianism fail to yield a good course of action and when
adhering to duty becomes unclear or conflicts with our intuitions of what is
right, it is the leader of good character who stands the best chance to
determine the most ethical course of action. This is not to say that leaders
may not find themselves in situations where any course of action results in a
morally impermissible result. Nor is it to say that a virtuous leader does not
appeal to utility or rules to determine what the right answer is. The point is
that the virtuous leader has developed the disposition to know how and when to
do that in the best way possible.

For example, the lieutenant might decide that it is
better to maximize the happiness of his men at the expense of fulfilling his
duty to obey lawful orders. But he will also understand that people who do that
must take responsibility for their actions and the bad consequences those
actions might have. So to prevent or mitigate the bad consequences he might
turn himself over to his superiors as soon as possible and take responsibility
for his action. This would send the message to his subordinates that what he
did may have been necessary, but it was not good. One of the consequences of
utilitarianism is that the lieutenant would actually be able to conclude that
torturing the civilian was a morally obligated act if he concluded that
rescuing his men maximized happiness. Virtue ethics allows him to conclude that
this may be the best course of action, but not that it is necessarily a morally
good one. Conversely, he might decide that his duty to obey lawful orders is
more important than the duty to his men. But again he would not conclude that
it was necessarily right. How he would handle that is open to speculation. I
hesitate to offer a definitive ‘virtuous’ solution because there really is not
one, at least not on the same sense that utilitarianism or rule-based systems
offer one.

These theories attempt to determine what the ‘right
thing’ to do is in a particular situation. As we have shown, however, they are
not always up to the challenge. Virtue ethics determines that the right thing
to do is become a virtuous person. What the virtuous lieutenant will understand
is that he cannot instantiate one virtue, such as caring, by failing to
instantiate another virtue, such as integrity. In any particular situation, the
virtuous person acts in such a way that these virtues are instantiated. This is
the strength of virtue ethics as a theoretical ethical framework for
leadership. Virtue ethics recognizes that good people can be put into difficult
situations where any outcome has bad (in the ethical sense) consequences.
Acting in such a situation, however, would not necessarily make someone a bad
person, though repeatedly doing so almost certainly would. Rightness or
wrongness is determined by the kind of person one is, not simply by the
consequences of the acts one commits. Actions may be evidence of virtue (or a lack
of virtue), but they are not in themselves virtues. As such, virtue ethics
recognizes, in ways the other theories do not, that while real-life situations
are messier than we would like, this does not preclude acting ethically.

Using virtue ethics to analyze and inculcate
leadership also allows us to distinguish between the vicious, bad, poor, fair,
good, excellent, outstanding, and/or inspirational leader in ways the other
theories do not. Utilitarian and rule based systems do not as easily lend
themselves to such distinctions and seem wholly incapable of capturing
conceptions like an "insensitive" or "inspirational"
leader. When we describe the good leader it is not enough to say that he or she
always does his or her duty. That is something we can say of most followers as
well. It also seems inadequate to say someone is a good leader simply because
he or she is able to maximize happiness and minimize misery better than others.
There is much more to being a good leader than duty and consequences and the virtue
approach allows us to explore and articulate this in ways other approaches do
not.

We are still left, however, with some unresolved
issues. While I think that a virtue ethics approach is superior to the rule
based one, I have not discussed in enough detail what the virtues of good
leadership are nor have I discussed in sufficient detail the difficult and
complex task of acquiring these virtues. Does a good leader need to be caring,
or is it sufficient to simply instantiate the other virtues with an attitude of
benevolence? I have discussed that they come from habituation and role
modeling, but in the practical matter of teaching it, I have not described a
compelling account of how to ensure that we do not slip back into rule-based
methods. In other words, in order to teach public virtue, do we issue a thirty
page document (as the city of Chicago did) spelling out in detail what that
means and tell people that if they adhere to these rules long enough and often
enough they will become habits? This will put us right back where we started
from. Similar problems exist for the other virtues as well. How do we teach
someone to be virtuous? It is not enough to say that it takes experience. We
have to understand what kind of experience it takes, and then devise means for
those who would lead to obtain it. Perhaps in addition to working on better
methods to teach leadership we must never lose sight of the need to inspire it.

NOTES

[1]This scenario is based on an actual event that
occurred during the Vietnam war.

See Anthony E. Hartle, Moral Issues in Military
Decision Making (Lawrence: University